


Fangs and Claws

by Raindropsonwhiskers



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Cave diving, Dimension Travel, Dr Nyarlathotep, F/M, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Other, asking for a friend with a lot of extradimensional limbs and teeth, for once the Master is the one getting hurt, if one eldritch horror eats another one is it cannibalism?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:01:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26244589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raindropsonwhiskers/pseuds/Raindropsonwhiskers
Summary: On a planet where the veil between dimensions is thin, the Doctor and the Master try to have a nice trip. This goes about as well as should be expected.
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 35





	Fangs and Claws

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fluffysfics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffysfics/gifts).
  * Inspired by [entanglement](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26237953) by [fluffysfics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffysfics/pseuds/fluffysfics). 



> Fluffy keeps writing really good eldritch Doctor fic and I keep writing him oneshots in the same AU because I love it so much  
> It really helps if you've read at least parts one and three of Fluffy's 'dimensional horror love stories' series for this one

The single sun of Albraxus-3 shines a dull shade of green through the thick fog, adding to the creepy atmosphere of the planet. Between the white, almost translucent, vegetation and the dark-furred creatures that slip through it soundlessly, the whole place feels like something out of a horror movie.

Naturally, the Master is enjoying it thoroughly. He can’t be certain that the Doctor brought them here specifically so that he could bask in the appropriately ominous atmosphere, but he knows her well enough to be pretty sure.

“Koschei! Come look at this pond!”

Speak of the wonderfully bizarre eldritch horror…

With a fond sigh, the Master makes his way(by foot, because he still hasn’t figured out teleportation yet) through the frosted glass bushes to find the Doctor. She’s knelt at the edge of a body of water - closer to a small lake than a pond, really - and staring at the murky grey water with undisguised glee. The edges of her are flickering a little bit with excitement.

“Tell me what you see in the water,” she orders.

Obligingly, he bends down and looks into the lake, then nearly falls into it out of shock. Extending from behind his shoulders, the tips of his tendrils are just barely visible. More immediately obvious, though, is the sheer magnitude of the ones branching from the Doctor. They twine around each other, spreading and tangling and coiling lazily in the air before shifting like smoke to different shapes. It’s beautiful, and more than a bit intimidating.

Normally, the vast majority of the Doctor’s are invisible; only a few at a time can press into this dimension without effort. The Master’s are usually completely tucked into the dimension they come from when he isn’t trying to manifest them. Seeing them all clear as day is a strange experience.

“Isn’t it neat?” The Doctor grins. Reflected in the water, her face splits into a shark-like maw filled with dagger-sharp teeth as she speaks. “I think the dimensional barrier’s a little weaker than usual here. I wonder why, though.”

For a moment, something long and sinuous seems to slip through the water; silvery scales reflect the green light just enough to catch the Master’s eye. Then it’s gone again, and all he can see is the pair of reflections.

“Maybe something did that on purpose,” he mutters.

The Doctor turns to face him, tilting her head. Her eyes flicker out of focus in slight confusion. “Can’t think of anything that’d want to do that. Or that  _ could. _ I probably could, now that I think about it. Never tried, honestly.”

“How about you  _ don’t _ try to break the universe just to see if you can,” the Master suggests quickly. It’s a very odd feeling to be stopping the Doctor from causing pointless destruction instead of the other way ‘round, but he’s actually fairly attached to the universe right now, and he doesn’t want to know what would happen to him if she succeeded. He’s in a strange in-between, now; not quite all in this dimension, but not nearly as well-established in the Doctor’s as she is.

“I wasn’t going to!” she protests. “Just saying, I probably could if I wanted to.”

“And it’s very impressive, Theta,” he says, giving one of her pseudo-hands a squeeze with his (real) hand.

She preens a little - he can tell by the way her tendrils shimmer like an oil slick - and then drags him off deeper into the woods. “I think I saw something move over here, come on!”

They’re knee-deep in a swamp, despite the Master’s protests, when he sees another flash of silver scales amongst the reflection of the Doctor’s limbs. This time, it’s much closer, nearly wrapping around his legs before it disappears into the murk.

“Theta, tell me you saw that,” he says.

“Saw what?” she asks, slowing her pace slightly so that she’s no longer a step ahead.

“The thing in the water.” He looks around, but it’s gone. “I saw it earlier, at the pond, and then it just appeared again. Silver scales, sort of snake-y.”

The Doctor frowns and pulls her sonic from the depths of her coat pocket. After a quick scan, the frown deepens and her eyes go black. “Nothing. Are you- no, of course you’re sure. If you see it again, tell me.”

One of her tentacles curls around his waist, both comforting and a little bit possessive. The Master’s hardly going to complain about that. He leans into the touch and wishes that he could return the gesture. Unfortunately, since his own extradimensional appendages are closer to being fingers than arms, he settles for sending a telepathic surge of warmth toward her. From the soft, if toothy, smile she sends back, she understands what he was going for.

He doesn’t see the silver creature again as they traverse the wetland, but they do find a very interesting cave that the Doctor insists on exploring. A pale blue, faintly luminescent moss grows on the rocks inside, lighting the way deeper in; technically, neither of them need it, but it’s certainly pretty. The Doctor scrapes a small sample of it off the wall as they walk, tucking it into her pocket.

“Maybe I could introduce this to the rainforest in the TARDIS,” she muses. “Been looking for something new to add for a while, now.”

The Master hums in vague agreement, and then comes to an abrupt stop as he steps into something wet. Looking down, he sees the same strange reflection that the pond and the swamp had shown, rippling slightly from where he’d stepped. The ripples go on a lot further than he’d expected, spreading outwards across the dull water until they disappear under the wall of rock ahead of them.

“Ooh!” the Doctor exclaims, her eyes glowing slightly with glee. “A sump! We should see where it goes.”

Well, the Master’s already accepted that this outfit is beyond hope, thanks to the combined effects of the swamp and the extremely sticky dirt. A little bit of cave diving is hardly going to make a difference at this point.

“Sure, love,” he says.

She beams with at least twice the amount of teeth that she technically has and presses a quick kiss to his cheek. The Master blinks, and finds that the Doctor’s coat is now neatly folded on a nearby rock.

“I’ll go first,” she says, leaving very little room to argue. “Just in case there is something there.”

Despite knowing that it would be almost impossible for her to get herself killed, the Master can’t resist a gentle, “Be careful.”

“Always am!” she grins.

And then she’s wading into the water, her tendrils sinking beneath the surface in a way that puts the Master in mind of a kraken. He waits, mostly patient, for the better part of fifteen minutes - 13 minutes, 42 seconds precisely - before he finally hears the faint sound of the Doctor calling his name.

Figuring that if there were something dangerous she would sound much more panicked, he takes a step into the sump. The water is cold, even with his low body temperature, and he shivers as he heads deeper. He’s never been a huge fan of swimming, but it seems shallow enough right now to not be too bad.

The floor drops out from under him only a few feet past the edge of the wall of rock. It’s a fairly claustrophobic situation, between the dim blue light, the bone-aching cold of the water, and the mere inches of air between the depths and the rock. Whatever is deeper in this place, it had better be worth it, he thinks bitterly. And he’s definitely making the Doctor teleport them out when they’re done.

Something brushes against his leg; it’s smooth, long, and slow enough to definitely be deliberate. The Master freezes. There’s not a doubt in his mind as to what the thing is as it repeats the terrible movement across his other leg. Whatever that silver creature is, it’s been following him, and now he’s trapped. Both shores are too far to reach in any reasonable sort of time, and  _ stars _ he wishes that he had teleportation figured out.

“Koschei?” the Doctor calls. “You okay?”

Hearing her voice calms him slightly. She must know that something’s wrong, must have felt his panic in her mind. He opens his mouth to shout back that no, he’s  _ really _ not okay, and gets about half a syllable in before being dragged under the water in one smooth motion.

Except, he isn’t beneath the surface of the water. He doesn’t feel cold as the creature suddenly releases his legs and somehow leaves him standing - in fact, it’s almost pleasantly warm after the chill of the sump. The air feels strangely thick and almost cozy when he takes a cautious breath in.

When he doesn’t immediately start choking, the Master finally opens his eyes and looks around. The place is the same murky grey as the water, though the walls - or at least, what he  _ thinks _ are the walls - are shot through with opalescent light. It’s more than bright enough to see the silver creature fully.

He was right; it is somewhat snake-like, for a very, very generous value of ‘snake’. Its long, limbless body is roughly the right shape, but instead of a defined head, it has a mass of shiny black eyes protruding from the mirror-like scales. Each one is, as best he can tell, focused solely on him. It’s also  _ much _ larger than it had seemed in the water, easily twelve feet long.

“Are you going to explain why you brought me… wherever this is, or just stare at me?” the Master asks, managing a decent amount of disdain given the situation.

All at once, the creature’s scales split open down the middle and reveal thousands of tiny mouths, all of which bear at least a dozen fangs.

“ **_Food,_ ** ” it rasps.

The words aren’t quite spoken, but they’re also not really telepathic. Overall, the effect is sort of like feedback from a speaker being pushed directly into the Master’s mind.

“Of course you’re going to try to eat me,” he sighs. “Can you at least tell me where I am before I die horribly?”

“ **_Home._ ** ”

“Helpful,” he mutters.

From the taste of the air and the way his time senses are going a little haywire, this is another dimension. From the warmth, the vague familiarity, and the inexplicable - not to mention extremely untimely - urge to settle in and take a nap, it’s probably close to the one the Doctor hails from. A pocket dimension, perhaps?

That’s about as far as his deductions get before the creature undulates - there really isn’t a better word for the sickening motion - closer at an alarming speed.

“Eating me is a bad idea,” the Master says quickly, stepping back. A moment later, his back hits a wall, and his hearts sink.

“ **_Small. Powers weak. Edible,_ ** ” the creature replies.

Bargaining clearly isn’t going to be effective with something so driven by base instincts, which unfortunately means hypnosis is right out, too. Not that he would really expect that to work; he highly doubts he could get all of those eyes to meet his own at once anyways.

The second-to-last clear thought the Master has, before his entire field of vision is full of hungry eyes, is that the Doctor is going to get very, very lonely without him. His last thought is that he loves her.

There’s a noise, somewhere between a bowling ball being rolled down a grand piano and a roar, drowning out the slide of scales against stone. The creature’s head whips around towards the source, its many mouths flaring open again.

It takes the Master a moment to understand - or, at the very least,  _ process _ \- the sight before him. He knows, the same way he knows his hearts are beating, that the figure is the Doctor. He also knows that even at her most incomprehensible, she doesn’t usually have that many teeth or tentacles. The fury radiating off of her hits his mind like a physical blow, and it takes all of his self control to not crumple to his knees then and there.

“ **_My prey! Get your own!_ ** ” the creature hisses. Jagged spikes sprout from the cluster of eyes in a sight that the Master is going to try very hard to forget.

What little light the veins of glowing stone provide disappears into inky blackness, and the Master feels the ground tremble beneath his feet. A sudden scraping noise grates at his ears, though it’s quickly replaced by a scream that goes straight into his brains. Then the scream cuts off, and all he hears is the ringing in his ears.

The lights don’t come on for another twelve and a half seconds, but when they do, the Master doesn’t see the creature. He does see the Doctor, with slightly fewer tentacles than she’d had a few moments ago and a much more practical number of teeth. She’s across the room for all of a heartsbeat before she’s next to him, wrapping him in every limb she possesses and burying her head in the crook of his neck.

“I’m so sorry, Kos,” she murmurs, her voice somewhere in the vicinity of his left ear. “I didn’t know- I got here as fast as I could. You disappeared and I couldn’t find you, but I could sort of feel you with these-” her tentacles wiggle a bit “- and I’m so, so sorry.”

“It’s okay, Theta.” He relaxes into her embrace, running his fingers through her hair. It has the slightly static-y feeling that the Doctor always does, ramped up and practically vibrating with energy beneath his fingers. “I’m okay.”

“You nearly died,” she says softly. “I don’t know what I would’ve done then.”

The Master bites back his immediate response that she would have been fine without him, because he knows that isn’t true. Instead, he presses a kiss to the top of her head, which switched what shoulder it was resting on at some point without him noticing.

After a while, he says, “What exactly did you do to that creature, love?”

The Doctor’s reply is muffled in his coat.

“What was that?”   


“I said, I might’ve eaten it,” she repeats, very quietly.

The Master blinks. The rational side of his mind, or what little remains of it, points out that that is  _ extremely _ disturbing to think about and really, he shouldn’t be feeling so warm and fuzzy about it. The side of his mind that’s accepted that this is his life now argues that the Doctor just killed something - probably  _ very _ painfully, if its scream was any indication - to protect him, and there’s no way he  _ can’t _ find that hot.

“I can feel you thinking,” the Doctor says, now meeting his eyes.

He grins. “I certainly hope so.”

Her answering smile matches his, give or take a few dozen glistening teeth. The Master feels himself go a little bit dizzy at the sight.

“You know,” she says casually, “it takes a lot of effort to hop through dimensions. Probably going to be a while before I have the energy to get back where we should be. If only there were something we could do while we wait…”

She glaces pointedly at his mouth and repositions a few tendrils to trail lazily across his skin. With that, the rational side of the Master’s mind finally succumbs to peer pressure, and he lets the Doctor kiss him, sharp teeth and all.


End file.
